UP#2: The illusion of time (Part II)

If you find that you don’t have enough time, you don’t have to fabricate more of it. You simply have to induce circumstances that lead you to think you have more time. So, what to do? After a long, long time of digressing (on my part), yes, it is something that simple: simply move your watch forward 15 minutes.

You see, if you wake up at 7:00 and sleep at 11:00, for example, all you’re doing is to shift it forward 15 minutes (so, if you go by your watch, you’ll be waking up at 7:15 and sleeping at 11:15 even thought actual time hasn’t really changed). All you’re doing, then, is to allow your perception of time shift forward by a certain margin (in this case, 15 minutes), to give yourself an imminent perspective of time. In other words, normally, you wake up peering at your watch through your half-opened eyes, ‘oh, seven already? Better get dressed…’. This is then followed by a yawn. On the other hand, when your watch goes faster, you’ll probably peer out of your half-closed eyes and stare at the watch, ‘it’s 7:15 already!? S***, better get dressed or my boss will murder me…’.

In retrospect, actual time hasn’t changed. It’s still seven. But when you’re backed into a corner and make yourself think that you’ve got less time, then you’ll work faster, which is similar to you ‘having’ more time. If you’re ambitious, you can do it up to an hour. It’s your choice.

There’s a direct chance to apply this already. If you’re the sort of person who just HAS to sleep at an EXACT time (e.g. 23:00), or else you just suffer from bad quality sleep, but you always find that your work or whatever it is that you do exceed 23:00, you can shift your watch half an hour forwards to give yourself the perception that you’ve got more TIME.

Time perspective warping:

“What if I have a digital watch?”

Some don’t allow you to change the time (they run according to time zones), while others do. Honestly, how much does a watch cost? If it can ‘buy’ you more time, it’s probably worth it to spend that extra $10 bucks on that second hand analogue watch, or to a digital watch that you have free reign over time setting.

Time is money. Here’s how you can use money to exchange the most invaluable resource ever. How’s that for a change?